Musings of a Murderess
by Grey Blade
Summary: She contemplated on the sunset for a moment, leaning back on her hands with her booted feet swinging to and fro. It was then that she started thinking of him... Sparrabeth


**This is a tribute fanfic to XxIcexX. She's an awesome Sparrabeth writer I met on the net and so I shall pay tribute to her and Zayz awesome works with this.**

**Please point out anything wrong. Flames are welcome. Praises are adored. Constructive Criticisms are encouraged.**

He was a rogue, plain as day. The calluses on his hands were still felt, lingering between her palm lines. The scars and bullet holes did nigh to help disguise the scoundrel of a man he showed. His smell was strong, still a strange perfume intoxicating even her very soul. Just the memory of him radiated an air of confidence, of freedom and something uniquely and roguishly his own. The dread locks, the beads, the rum, the stagger, the golden teeth, _everything_. He was the very embodiment of the word 'pirate'.

Save for one thing. His eyes.

Those eyes that still followed her, no matter how alone she was. Eyes so hauntingly beautiful like orbs of molten gold. Blackened gold yes, if consistency with eye color had to be followed, but beautiful, shining and penetrating gold nonetheless.

Not anymore.

Elizabeth would guess, with large certainty that his eyes were now glazed and dull, forever to be the swirling vortex of death. She could only imagine what they looked like before finally giving in to the deep wrenching pull of the Locker. They would hold a challenge, no matter how futile. He was never a man to back down from anything. Yes, he avoided the exposing positions to battle. He was good at that, too, the avoiding; what with his charisma and witted tongue. But if need be, he would never run away. He may have looked like a selfish bastard of a craven, but everyone knew him to be more than that. He was, after all, not just the Pirate Lord of the Caribbean. He was, more important than anything else, Captain Jack Sparrow.

The fool.

Elizabeth's eyes opened with a snap, as if even the remote thought of relating _the _Jack Sparrow with a fool acted as the perfect leverage to pull her abruptly from her own thoughts and into the real world.

"Captain _Jack Sparrow_," she thought with some grimness. "_It was that kind of ego that got you into this_." But she knew very well it wasn't just his ego. There was also his bravery to consider, and a quasi-dormant sense of moral and loyalty. He came back, despite the kraken, despite the life he most certainly could've had, despite the fact that everyone else aboard the Pearl were there for the kraken taking. He came back and with undoubted aim, saved them.

_She's only a ship, mate_. Never in her life did she guess he would say such a selfless thing. It wasn't him. Those words that had seeped from his mouth, they were the downfall of the careful images of a rogue he had so painstakingly gathered. That was the time, then and inevitably for the next 'forever' that Elizabeth finally thought of him as a real being. Prior to that, he was just an icon of the seas; it was at that one minute moment of selflessness that he let slip that he was with man's skin, human.

She had thanked him. She thanked him for being real; for coming back. No, _wait_. She kissed him.

Part of her did it for the crew, another for herself and only her own craving, selfish self. Jack had been right. She did want to taste it and what it felt like, to see just a flicker of the life he offered, and god did that taste feel so rightly wrong yet at the same time painfully, alluringly, and blissfully wrongly right.

And then the reality of it all had snapped back like an elastic band. The crew came back to mind. Her fiancée came back to mind. She chained him, left him and then killed a part of herself off. She was right when she said she wasn't sorry. That's why there was no pain, no deadly guilt to weigh her down the rest of their journey. She wished so fervently that she would suffer, for all the crimes she's committed, but something insider just wouldn't snap.

On the contrary, the only remote sense of emotion she felt afterwards was the most ideal one. Efficient and it doesn't get in the way. She felt _numb_.

Now back in reality, on the fish-ridden port of Tortuga, with many a sailor bellowing at the top of their lungs, and with fish sellers bellowing even louder. In the background, she could distinctly hear a fiddle, playing to the tune of violence most probably forming in one of the many taverns. She had been sitting nonchalant-like on the top of a rock carved onto the side of an out-of-place hill by the shore.

The otherwise gothic color scheme of the island had dissipated, if not for a bit. The vermilions and ochers of the sunset bathed the scene with lushness and art. The bustling crowds, the cat fights and the fish of Tortuga, everything that blatantly belonged to Tortuga, became a rich moving painting of a traveling unknown.

Elizabeth herself was directly beneath the rays of the sinking sun. Her tanned face became a smooth copper and her dirty blonde hair became rugged and brown. The sea before her, became a lake of orange, with the last few bits of light glancing off its tiny waves.

She sat up, straightest, and regarded the sunset with a scowl. Sunsets were always beautiful, there was no denying that. But it was with a small annoyance that she remembered it was Will that liked sunsets, not her. For her it was the sunrise that not only held beauty but glory as well. With the same annoyance, she remembered Jack mention in passing that he preferred sunrises as well. _Bring me that horizon_, he would always say.

She shook her head slowly. It was a vain attempt to rid herself of any thoughts concerning him. Practically everything she looked at reminded her of him and ultimately the crimes she did _against_ him. That pinch of sand would remind her of his "jar o' dirt"; black paint would remind her of the kohl that lined his eyes; even complete strangers, women with any amount of exposed cleavage, would remind her of the fact that he probably had a list of past flings longer than his tall sea turtle tales. It was inevitable, so to say the least, that even wigs reminded her of him. Now here in Tortuga, where they were making port, it had everything that represented him, almost enough to form a living replica out of memories.

She sighed deeply, feeling more shards of her former, naïve self fall. Ever since his death she had become the mature, crestfallen and logical woman her stuffy relatives wanted her to be. The irony of it, yes.

She bit her lip, deliberated for a moment, before finally springing off the small landmark. She didn't know how long she's been separated from any member of the crew, but she was entirely grateful they let her sit alone. But it was finally turning to dusk and later on it would be night; if she stayed any longer then there was no doubt a fuss would be started over her. That was always Will. He was protective of her and she feared he still saw her as that woman long ago with the dresses and the fainting and the drowning. Not Jack though. Elizabeth knew that he knew her more than anyone (including herself) else and did nothing whatsoever to cage it in.

She'd be the first to admit, it was with Jack when she felt the most fulfillment. It was because of that fact that she was able to admit to herself, with some hesitance and certainty, that she had feelings for him more than she should allow.

She trudged forward, raking her slender fingers through the waves of her hair to yank out some knots. The port was still a good three miles away. She knew she needed to hurry but today she felt something like tiredness, calm and relief all wedged together into a crevice that slowed whatever progress she tried to make.

She looked at the sunset, now a quarter disk set against the sky, again, took a deep breath and let it out in a deep, solemn sigh with her eyes focused on the sand between her boots.

A rough hand gently caught hers. She snapped her head up, instantly alert. On instinct her hand snapped up to feel the hilt of her sword. But it never got there. Her hand reached halfway up when it stopped abruptly as she realized that the tanned, rough, calloused hand felt very familiar.

"My tremendous intuitive sense of the female creature informs me that you are... troubled," he breathed into her hair.

She turned around, the beginnings of an authentically joyful smile forming on her lips, and looked right into the blackened gold orbs of kohl-lined eyes.

**Uhm…what? LOL I don't know what's with the ending. ^.^ I really wanted it to be something like a'zomg you're alive," kind of fic but then I only have enough time throughout the whole month to make a oneshot, and considering this is a tribute fic to XxIcexX I didn't want to make her wait (pssst, read her fanfics they're awesome).**

**IMPORTANT NOTE!!!! "**Eyes so hauntingly beautiful like orbs of molten gold" **NOT MY LINE! My dear best friend did another one of those "I'm bored so I'll say some stuff and put a line at the start" texts. This is my favorite of hers. So DISCLAIMER! It's not mine. ******** props to Calysta Sylpher**


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